


It’s Hard to Imagine the Lives We Used to Have

by theshipsfirstmate



Series: So Now What [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Post S4, so now what series, staying in starling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 07:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7352227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their next step forward takes a hard week, a chance encounter, and an errant phone alarm.</p><p>"It feels like trying to glue something back together, a vase or a mug, something that shatters into near-perfect pieces that fit back together like a puzzle. You find the fit and press it tight, willing adhesive to make the thing new again."</p>
            </blockquote>





	It’s Hard to Imagine the Lives We Used to Have

 

_(shoutout to[effie214](http://archiveofourown.org/users/effie214/pseuds/effie214), who headcanoned so much of this with me, I can’t even remember what. she gets credit for grilled cheese and a lot more.)_

**It’s Hard to Imagine the Lives We Used to Have**

Their next big step forward comes after a particularly tough night on the streets of the new Star City. The Black Canary copycat is back, it seems, and though the girl’s not wearing Laurel’s gear anymore, it’s still so much like seeing a ghost. Felicity can tell that it’s getting to Oliver too. She’s never had a problem reading him, and it’s especially easy these days, when it’s just the two of them down in the bunker, together.

“Four years in, and no one seems to get it,” he grumbles, peeling off his jacket as he strides past her without so much as a sideways glance. “This life only ends in tragedy. Why do they…”

Then he actually does turn back to face her, of course. For the unanswerable question.

“I don’t know,” she tells him honestly, because there aren’t any words for the feeling of duty that had fishhooked her heart all those years ago, lassoed her very essence and turned her into someone who actively works every day to save the world. A hero. “Same reason as you, I guess.”

He shakes his head, dropping his eyes to his shoes as he shuffles back past her, towards the elevator. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Felicity thinks about how many times they’ve done this, the same tortured words in the same mournful cadence. She wonders why she isn’t getting any better at it.

“Well I did,” she says, sharply, before her brain has the chance to press pause on her mouth. He turns back. “I’ve had a few choices, actually.”

When she tells him that, she’s remembering all the times she’s stood by his side, stayed with him when it would have been both safer and smarter to walk away. But as she watches the words land across the heavy lines of his face, she knows he’s gone in a different direction, thinking of the times she’s walked away.

When he heads for the door, she can’t find the words to stop him.

* * *

She trudges through the cemetery with guilt hanging heavy around her shoulders. She had promised Quentin that she’d leave flowers for Father’s Day, but between a slippery Bad Guy of the Week and her own tumultuous feelings about the day, she’s more than a week late. And Felicity feels awful.

She’s so wrapped up in her own little black cloud, she barely notices Oliver approaching from the opposite direction, until the crack of a stick underfoot jerks her head up, her hand clutching around a bouquet of lilies and daisies and mountain laurels that she’s already holding too tightly.

“Where were you…” She stops herself, but he’s already answering her obvious question.

“I stopped by my parents’ too.” She can’t imagine how it must feel for him, being here. There’s only one ghost casting shadows for her in this cemetery, but for him it’s like a picture album of his childhood. Robert, Moira, Tommy, _Laurel_.

They’re both quiet as she lays the flowers down at the headstone. She’s been here a few times since the funeral, but she has yet to talk to her friend, if only because it’s hard to believe that six feet of dirt could possibly contain someone who once flew so high.

“I was surprised we got so close, you know?” Felicity’s not sure why she tells him that. But she’s not upset when she hears him laugh just the tiniest bit.

“Yeah. Me too.”

She and Laurel did have him in common, that much was true. But as she thinks back now, that wasn’t the exact tragedy brought them together.

“I told her about Cooper,” Felicity tells him. “When you were gone, I told her about Cooper. How it felt when I though he died, how it felt when he came back. How it wasn’t until I looked at the scar, all those years later, that I realized how deep the wound had cut.”

Oliver looks at her and she can tell that he understands what they’re talking about.

“It’s just so rare to find that,” she adds, “someone who shares such a specific emotional reference.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he takes her hand in his, stares down at his thumb as it traces over her knuckles.

“Can I…” Oliver starts, and Felicity almost says “Yes” in the pause before he finishes. “Will you go somewhere with me?”

* * *

He takes her to a rooftop in one of the nicer parts of a town, points her in the direction of a top-floor apartment, where a family is sitting down to dinner in a colorful room behind a big picture window. Felicity counts a mother, a father, and three little girls, two blonde and one brunette.

“Is that…?”

“That’s Nora Darhk’s – well, Nora Adams’ – new foster family.”

Felicity remembers the little girl’s face, though thankfully, she looks a lot different now. Gone are the dark circles and haunted look of fear, replaced by a sparkling, if cautious, gaze and a small smile as she engages in conversation.

When she turns to Oliver, goldfishing for the right words, he’s watching the girl with the most mournful look of hope she’s ever seen.

So this is what he’s done. Even if Felicity doesn’t know the exact details, this is what he’s done. Because he knows a thing or two about becoming an orphan. Because he understands what it’s like to learn that your parents were a hundred other things besides Mom and Dad. Because he thinks he’s responsible.

“Are they…?”

“They’re good,” Oliver assures her quickly, in a way that lets her know that he’s done the background. She reaches for his hand to try and show that she never doubted him. He lets her take it. “They’re good people. That’s all we can ask for.”

It’s harder this time, to keep away from him. It’s harder because of their history, and also, because of him, who he is now. The past few times they’ve found themselves in this place, it had been when he had changed in some way. He was back from the dead or returned from the League, someone else entirely, and Felicity was left scrambling to find out if this new Oliver was a person she loved just as much.

This time, he’s just… him.

He’s Oliver, the same man she fell for all those years ago, the same man she’s found herself unable to stop loving. Her almost-husband. At times like these, she misses him almost desperately.

“We should go home.”

Felicity knows he’s heard her, because his body tenses. But he also goes quiet, and she figures he might stay that way.

She tries again. “Will you take me home?” Oliver nods, and he does stays silent as he leads her to his to his car, through the empty streets and back to the apartment that used to be their home, holding her hand the whole way.

* * *

When Felicity opens the front door to the loft, her nose crinkles immediately at the smell. _Oops_. She cringes first, but then hazards a glance at Oliver. It’s the first full smile she’s seen on his face in weeks.

Damage control is probably useless, but she tries anyway. “I made a grilled cheese…”

“You _burned_ a grilled cheese.” His voice cracks on the accusation, and it’s so playful it’s practically contagious. Which is why she admits it to him.

“Technically, I burned four.”

That earns her an actual laugh that warms her very soul, even as it reddens her face.

“I didn’t even bother trying pancakes, but I thought maybe I could at least do grilled cheese,” she blurts out defensively as he drops her hand for the first time in what feels like a while, crossing to the garbage can to investigate the evidence. “You used to make it look so easy!

“I mean, that one time, we…right on the counter…” Felicity’s outright sputtering at this point. “And you didn’t burn the sandwiches or anything!”

Oliver just grins, instinctually grabbing the scalded pan from the stovetop where she had left it last night in a frustrated, hangry rage, crossing to the sink to put it in to soak.

“I came pretty close to burning those sandwiches,” he admits, and when he looks up from the sink at her, the fire in his gaze scalds her a little. He shrugs, as if trying to disperse the tension with the flex of his shoulders. “It’s tougher than it looks. Did you use mayo?”

“Ew, no.” The tension of the moment is mostly gone at the mention of mayonnaise, but the sight of him in the kitchen still makes her heart twist unconsciously, painfully.

Another shrug. “That’s the trick. Mayo on the outside of the bread.” Another little smile. Felicity’s realizing she’s pretty much powerless to this. “That’s it. That’s what made it so great.”

Oliver takes in a deep breath, and she knows he heard it too. She tells him, just so he knows for sure. “No, it wasn’t.”

“No,” he agrees, “it wasn’t.”

He’s wrist-deep in soapy water, so she feels somehow safer walking over to wrap her hands around one of his elbows, resting her chin against the skin of his upper arm like she has a thousand times before.

_“Will you stay?”_

Her question comes out like a whisper and he goes silent again. Felicity watches his jaw tense, steps back a little to give him some space.

“Not to do… anything,” she promises. “Just stay with me?”

If the quiet coming home was disconcerting, this one is almost comforting. If nothing else, she’s grateful that when they get to the top of the stairs, she doesn’t have to explain why she leads him to the guest room, instead of what used to be their master bedroom, which still sits barren because she’s learned to walk on her own twice now, but there are still some steps even she can’t take.

They strip to their underwear – something else that feels habitual, even if it’s been awhile – and climb under the cover. It’s all Felicity can do not to scoot the last few inches into his arms. She switches off the light on the bedside table and lets the blackness of the room seep into the silence, pulse pounding at the weight of him on the mattress beside her.

It’s like putting on a T-shirt backwards, when it’s almost right, but the collar chokes you a little. They’re on the proper sides, but it’s not their bed anymore. And Felicity knows he’s keeping quiet, because he doesn’t want to say anything he might regret if she starts taking things back.

“Where have you been sleeping?” she asks the silence. Oliver doesn’t answer, but she’s fairly certain that he’s not asleep.

It feels like trying to glue something back together, a vase or a mug, something that shatters into near-perfect pieces that fit back together like a puzzle. You find the fit and press it tight, willing adhesive to make the thing new again.

And it’ll fit, but you’ll always feel it. It’ll work, but it will always be a little weaker. You’ll be able to see it, even if no one else can. The spot where you broke apart.

* * *

It’s a testament to how exhausted she is that she’s almost drifting off, even as the conscious proximity to Oliver surges through her veins like a caffeine jolt. She’s almost out for good when the alarm on her phone goes off.

Felicity rolls quickly to the bedside table to silence it, and her mouth goes dry at the alert that shows on the screen. It’s midnight.

“What is it?” She jumps a little at the sound of Oliver’s voice and replies almost on instinct.

“It’s nothing.”

“Okay.” The word is so quiet off his lips she can barely hear it, but she can feel him sink back into the mattress. His defeat is almost palpable, and she can’t even accuse him of dramatics. It’s not his fault.  

“Do you remember our first night in the new house last year?”

The silence was fine before, but now she wants to keep him talking. Mercifully, he obliges. “I remember.”

“I felt so bad because we had missed your birthday,” she recalls. Spring never seems to be a good season for them, and it had been more than a month late when she had realized that the day in May had passed without acknowledgment.

“I don’t like it, anyway.” He frowns, and Felicity raises a hand to smooth over the crease that forms beside his eyes. 

She catches herself the second before she actually touches him, but in a split second of either weakness or bravery, still allows herself to trace lightly over his features. Oliver’s eyes slide shut, and he looks younger, maybe like a boy who used to get excited about his birthday, back when there were still people in his life to celebrate with.

“And you didn’t want it to be the day you came back,” she adds. Felicity had figured as much, but she had checked just in case, flipping through the tiny calendar their real estate agent had left on the kitchen counter, so desperate to celebrate this man who was so certain he didn't deserve it.

“So we met in the middle.” Oliver’s looking at her like he does sometimes, looking at her like she has the answers to questions they’re both too afraid to ask.

“It’s June 29,” Felicity tells him instead. She sets her phone back on the table, then turns back to lose herself in that intense gaze when she adds, “Happy rebirthday.”

He wraps an arm around her then, like the rest of his resolve has cracked, tugging her against him like he can’t help himself anymore. 

“It’s only because of you,” Oliver thanks her softly, whispering into her hair like a dream. Felicity tries not to shudder, breathing him in and nuzzling lightly at his chest, squeezing her eyes shut to keep her traitorous tears from ruining this moment. “All of it. It only means anything because of you.”

It’s a lot to take in, the way this feels. The way it still feels, as intense as ever, perhaps more so. It’s maybe too much for tonight. But there’s always tomorrow.


End file.
